Horses Then and Now

                                                by Laura Crum

            For me, horses now are not about riding. There are a lot of reasons for this, but the most typical one—fear/anxiety—isn’t the cause. I have had fear/anxiety before and I know its face. What is happening for me now is that my interest lies elsewhere. And this has happened to me before and I recognize it also.

            I spent my thirties obsessively competing on horseback. First at cutting, then at team roping. I trained young horses to do these events, I practiced several times a week, and I competed every weekend. This was my life for over ten straight years. For awhile I loved it. And then I burned out on it.

            There were a lot of reasons. The abuse that I saw in the name of competition was one. The lack of any real meaning in “winning” an event was another. Getting tired of hauling all those miles was yet another. I saw a lot of horses get hurt; I saw a lot of horses have stress related injuries and illness that were completely avoidable—I got really sick of seeing that. Maybe a lot of it was “been there, done that.” I also began to see that sort of camaraderie I had enjoyed at these events really didn’t translate into meaningful friendship. For all these reasons and others, at forty years of age I just didn’t care about competing at horse events any more. And I found myself drawn to something else. Tending the garden—with horses as part of my garden.

            I still loved my horses. I enjoyed their company. I liked to see them grazing along the driveway, I liked to feed them and interact with them. I liked to see them watching me as I worked in my garden. And I particularly liked being peaceful and solitary on my own small property, planting and tending and caring for plants and critters, including the horses, and watching the wild things. The last thing I wanted was to go out into the busy world and do something stressful with my horses in order to prove something to myself or others. This did not seem “fun” to me in the slightest.

            During this period of my life I got together with my husband, Andy, and we shared many happy hours doing things together here on the property, and also doing things that were not horse related (biking, hiking, camping, traveling). We had a child and we both put raising him first. I thought that growing up with horses would be a good thing for my son (see my post “Growing Up With Horses”) and eventually I took up riding regularly again (trail riding, not competing), so my boy and I could share this pastime. And Andy often hiked with us, along with our dogs. It was a good life.

            But as my boy grew older and became a teenager and lost interest in riding, and his horse grew older and lost the desire to climb steep hills, I found that my own interest in trail riding was also growing weaker. My husband got sick and all I wanted was to spend time with him. After Andy died I realized that I had once again come full circle to the place I had been in when we got together. I just wanted to stay home and tend my garden—with horses as part of the garden.

            In real life, of course, I can’t stay home. I haul my teenage son from one thing to another. Lessons, golf, music, computer design class…etc. I must buy the groceries and run the necessary errands. My life is plenty busy. But when I can choose, I choose to stay home. Planting veggie seedlings, turning the horses out to graze, just sitting in the barn watching the horses eat hay, watching the light change in the sky, watching the reflections on the pond, lying in the hammock that hangs from the big oak tree. These things make me happy. Or as happy as I can be right now.

            Last weekend my son and I planted romaine lettuce seedlings in Andy’s aquaponics project in the greenhouse. We have been eating Ceasar salad (my son’s favorite) from this project two or three times a week for the last few months. And we planted seeds to germinate in the greenhouse and become squash and bean plants that will grow in the veggie garden, carefully pressing the seeds that Andy bought last year into the soil. I know Andy is happy to see we are carrying on his work—and doing it together.

            My neighbor helped us with his backhoe the next day, and we placed a large stone on Gunner’s grave, which is in the barnyard. And my boy raked the ground and seeded new grass to grow. We sprinkled the grass seed to get it started. The horses watched us from their corrals and nickered occasionally, telling us it was lunchtime. When we were done we gave them some hay and sat down on Gunner’s rock to survey our work. And again, I felt Andy smiling. We are tending the garden that Andy and I created together. Our little life as a family goes on. And horses are a part of it.

            This is what horses are to me now. I know that many of you have gone through similar cycles with riding/not riding, and I would be interested to hear your insights on this subject.

Growing Up With Horses

                                                            by Laura Crum

            My son has been raised with horses. Ever since he was a baby he rode with me on my horse—first on Flanigan, and then after Flanigan died, on Plumber. I know—no helmet—but we never had one problem.

            When my kid was five years old I bought him a pony and for two years he rode Toby—first on the leadline and then independently. He learned to ride on that pony.

            Toby died when my son was seven and I bought Henry for him. And on this good red horse he rode miles and miles—on the beach, through the hills, gathering cattle, in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Those of you who have followed this blog for a few years know about all our many horseback adventures. We never had one wreck or even a bad moment. And my son loved to ride.

            When my boy became a teenager his interest in riding began to lessen. This didn’t surprise me. Horses were my passion, and I was happy to share them with him, but I always thought there would come a day when he might want to find his own interests. And lo and behold he began to devote what free time he had to making music, playing golf, and designing video games. He still rode with me once in awhile, but less and less.

            There was a certain serendipity to this because the year my son began to lose interest (at thirteen), Henry turned 26, and began to have trouble with hill climbs. He was still sound on level ground and free moving, but his hocks/stifles bothered him on steeper hills. The last couple of trail rides we attempted in the hills (last summer) we turned back because Henry was clearly uncomfortable. My son rode him on short gentle trail rides and in the arena, and was getting bored with this.

            I offered to give him my horse or buy him a new horse, but my teenager’s interest in riding just wasn’t there. The last couple of trail rides I went on, my boy opted not to go. I think this photo is of my last ride—in August or September.

            After my husband got sick and died, my own interest in riding disappeared. I just didn’t and don’t have any emotional energy for this pursuit. When I think about it, the words “been there, done that” come to mind. My son wasn’t/isn’t interested. So for now, riding is on the back burner. Perhaps we will go for a ride some day. Or not. Doesn’t really matter. Many lovely rides are part of us forever. And the most important element of owning horses is part of our every day lives.

            What’s that, you say. You don’t ride—what’s the most important part then? That would be living with horses. I have known for a long time that if I had to choose between never riding again but getting to have my horses live with me, and riding all I wanted but having to board, I would choose not riding/horses living with me every time.

            Our horses are part of our life. We feed them three times a day and check their water and sit in the barn and watch them and rub on them and turn them out to graze along the driveway. My son’s favorite spot on our property is a swing in a big oak tree in the barnyard. He spends time there pretty much every day. Sometimes swinging high, sometimes just idly gazing at the horses and chickens and wild birds and all the wild critters that ramble about our place. He’s seen bobcats, coyotes, and every sort of deer from huge bucks to baby fawns up close and personal, as he sat in his swing and they wandered by. And always there are the horses. He spends plenty of time just hanging out with them—and has been doing this all his life.

            My strongest childhood memory of horses isn’t of riding them, though I loved to ride. It is of a swing that hung in my uncle’s barnyard out at the old ranch—in a big cottonwood tree. I spent many long hours there, lazing around on the swing, watching the cottonwood leaves flicker green and silver against the blue sky, and watching the horses idle around their corrals—particularly my favorite—the bright bay gelding named Mr Softime.

            If you had asked me, I would have told you that I was bored and that I wished my uncle would come out to the barn and let me ride. I was very horse obsessed as a young girl and I loved to ride. But though I have many riding memories, none of them are quite as strong as those memories of the swing in the barnyard and those long spacious idle hours just being with horses.

            When my boy was young I asked my husband to hang a swing in the big oak tree in our barnyard—and I was very consciously thinking of that barnyard swing of my childhood. I wanted my son to have that same experience—those quiet empty hours swinging in the green world and watching the horses. Andy, my husband, always said that boredom is the cauldron of creativity and I think that is true. If we schedule our children so that they have no time to be “bored,” we deprive them of the ability to become creative. But more than that, there is a spaciousness, a vastness, a freedom, in those long idle hours spent in nature—and to my mind a swing hung from a big tree in a barnyard where one can watch horses is the best way to spend such hours, bar none (I know, I’m prejudiced). Andy hung that swing over ten years ago and our boy has made good use of it ever after.

            So yes, we don’t ride right now. But horses are part of our life. And I would always choose to have horses here, even if I never do ride again. I truly believe that our horses have been/are/and will always be a great gift to my son. My husband was not a horse person, but he totally agreed with and supported this. Horse therapy is said to be the number one best thing for emotionally/physically impaired kids—so how good must it be for the emotional health of all kids?

            Anyway, I am really glad that my boy grew up with horses and I am grateful for our quiet, horse-filled barnyard and the swing in the oak tree—every single day of my life. Even if neither one of us ever rides a horse again.